I rubbed my hand up and down his back. “I don’t hate you,” I whispered. And I didn’t, not really. I was mad at him. I was humiliated that he would put me through something so publicly scandalous. But I didn’t hate him. And that was the problem. If I had hated him, I would have had something left to give. But, instead, I felt largely indifferent. But I knew where he was and what he was feeling, that devastation that had taken hold of me weeks earlier. But I had had time to sort through these feelings, to come to terms with the fact that we were over. And he had had no idea.
“So what am I supposed to do now?” he asked.
“Get a lawyer.”
“A lawyer?”
“Yeah. You know, to handle your side of the divorce. But, don’t worry, I don’t want anything from you.”
“How can you even say that, Annabelle, when I still want everything from you?”
I shrugged sadly. “I will always love you, Ben, and this will always hurt. But, for now, I just want it to be over.”
I turned to walk into the office, feeling so stupid. How could I have been so naïve? How could I have thought that this could possibly work out?
I stood in the hallway for a moment to catch my breath, to swallow the tears back from my throat. I put on my best fake smile and walked into Rob’s office. “Good morning, Rob!” I said sunnily.
He pointed to the chair in front of his desk, and I sat down, glancing at the built-in bookcases on either side of the ancient fireplace, wondering if there were any books in there about how to move on after a terrible divorce from a man you trusted completely who cheated on you with the woman who was your biggest fear all along. Probably not. That seemed like a pretty specific topic. “What’s going on?”
I smiled brightly. “Oh, nothing. What do you need today?”
He gave me a sideways look. “No, I mean, what’s wrong?”
I pursed my lips together in a tight smile and rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. I guess there’s no hiding things from a priest. I wanted to tell him, I really did. There was something about him that just made all of your secrets want to come spilling out like stuffing from a ripped teddy bear. But I had two more weeks at my little bed-and-breakfast haven. I had two more weeks before I would have to leave town and face the music. I had two more weeks of getting to be in this cozy office with this wonderful man doing a job that felt really important to me.
So, instead of falling into a pile of distress on his desk, I put my happy face back on and said, “So, what exciting adventure does the Holy Spirit have in store for us this morning?”
He gave me that look that meant he knew I was hiding something, but he was going to let me be, and said, “We’re going to go read with some kids at the elementary school.”
I said, “Amazing!” But what I thought was that story time with a bunch of precious children wasn’t exactly what I needed to take my mind off the one that I had lost only the night before.
Lovey
Weight
The best things in life are the unexpected ones. That’s what my momma thought. But me? I’m on the fence about that one. I generally like to be prepared.
And that day, I felt on top of things. I felt ready; I felt like the pieces of life were finally falling back into place. I had graduated from rehab and was out of the nursing home. I could walk, praise the Lord. Dan and I were settling back into our routine, our regular nurses, our assisted living apartment that, while still new, was beginning to feel more like home. I was playing bridge again, seeing my friends.
Things seemed relatively ordinary. I had even managed to forget Annabelle’s outburst for a moment or two.
So maybe that’s why it didn’t happen like I thought it would. I expected some sort of emergency. Ambulance, EMT, defibrillator, extended hospital stay, devastation over pulling the plug . . . So, I guess the reason I didn’t cry right away is that I didn’t believe it. When I woke, stretched, listened to the birds chirping outside my window, thought of the delicious French vanilla creamer I had for my coffee, I expected it to be a normal day. Maybe I’d make bacon and eggs for breakfast. Kelly would be there to roll Dan down to lunch while I shuffled behind with the cane I had graduated to, thankful that the cumbersome walker was folded safely in my trunk for long walks and grocery store trips. I would play bridge in the afternoon while Luella sat with Dan, maybe read to him, maybe let him help her with the crossword if he was speaking that day. Then I would come home, have my scotch and we would sit together, probably with a few friends, have dinner, watch the news, and a nurse would put Dan to bed while I read for a while on the couch. That’s what I expected.
When I sat up and looked at Dan in his bed, my foot nearly touching him in the crowded room, I actually smiled because he looked so peaceful. I got up, taking my robe from the chair beside the bed, rubbed my tight hip just a little and tiptoed as best as one could with a cane so as not to wake my husband. Had a voice in my head not told me to turn back around, I probably would have had another hour or two of normalcy, another hour or two of life the same as it always had been. I would have been happily sipping my first cup of coffee of the morning, whisking the eggs, laying the bacon in the pan.
But I did turn back around, and, when I approached Dan’s bedside, I realized that, besides peaceful, he seemed very, very still. When I touched him, he was cold. Perhaps still not understanding what was happening or maybe in denial, I pulled the blanket up around him tighter, touching his chest, which was when I realized it wasn’t rising up and down. I put my finger to his neck. No pulse.
Then I sat down beside him in the little chair by his bed and took his hand in mine, staring at him, memorizing the lines of his face, his hairline, his bushy eyebrows.
I had pictured this day in my mind many, many times before. Who wouldn’t? In the scope of old age, when you realize that, in all likelihood, you are going to outlive the man you married, it is only practical to imagine how you might feel when he is gone from you. I had pictured hysteria and nausea, tears and screaming. But that supposed that he left me in a flurry of doctors, nurses and hospital workers, syringes and beeping screens.
It was so calm now, a sliver of light rising through the windows and onto his sleeping face. The first thing I did, right then and there, was thank God. Because I was eighty-seven years old, and He had given me the two things I had prayed for most fervently over the last few years. I had outlived my Dan, and it seemed terribly likely that all five of my girls would outlive me. As I exhaled, a tremendous weight lifted off of my shoulders.
And then I screamed like I would never stop. Screamed with the remembrance that this wasn’t Dan’s sleeping hand I was holding; it was his dead one. Screamed so loud that four nurses came charging into my apartment, as well they should have.
I’m sure they tried to console me and comfort me, hug me and soothe me. But nothing was going to make this better. My entire life had revolved around this man, and now, just as quickly as he had appeared in the school line beside me nearly eighty years before, he was gone.
Annabelle
Drowning
Lovey always says that, when you’re in church, being in the front row is a safe bet because you want to make sure that God sees you. It was a joke, of course, but, truth be told, I’ve never really felt the need to be in any pew every Sunday morning. I knew God was there watching over me, guiding my steps, pointing me in the right direction. But, unlike my Lovey, I didn’t feel the need to organize the fall bazaar or shine the chalice over gossip with the other members of the altar guild. Somewhere in that time at Saint Paul’s, I had started to realize how good it could feel to be a part of a church, to feel the Holy Spirit in the quiet moments in the pew. I think that little church family contributed to the fact that, though it had been weeks since I left Ben, I was feeling strong and refreshed.
Putting Holden off for that long had required some serious effort, but, practical as ever, he realized I needed som
e time to myself. To just be. My two weeks at The Oaks had turned to three, three weeks to two months and two months to three months. I had made a good friend in Judy, the owner, and I think we both found comfort in sharing our deepest secrets with a relative stranger.
Lying to my family had been tough, though, and they knew something was up. My daily calls had turned to weekly ones. I spent a lot of time talking about my job and evading questions about what Ben and I were up to. I had asked him to please not try to contact them, and, even though he had hurt me, I knew him well enough to know that he would respect my wishes.
It was hard to believe that it had been nearly five months since I found out about Ben and Laura Anne, all that time carrying around this huge burden. I still hadn’t left my husband’s hometown, and, even though I hadn’t told a soul that really knew me what I was going through, I thought I was feeling strong enough that I might be ready. Ready to face the intense embarrassment that I had failed, ready to know that, everywhere I went, everyone was whispering about me when I left the room. Well, as ready as a person can ever be for something like that.
I knew that I had made the right decision and that I wasn’t going back to Ben. It was time to move on with my life.
But the worst part of all of it was having to leave my job. I dreaded not being with Rob every day or getting to be a part of the resurgence of this church’s life. And the thing that weighed on me most heavily was that I hadn’t made up with Lovey. It was the longest I had ever gone without talking to her. I knew that one moment on the phone and she would know that my life was crumbling around me. And I wasn’t ready to admit that they had all been right.
But life was short. And it was time.
I couldn’t sleep that night, consumed by the thought that I was going to leave, oddly devastated that I would have to say good-bye to the person I had come to admire and respect the most: Rob. I snuck into the side door of the tiny chapel that morning before the sun had even come up. It was stark and unadorned, the stone floor and the wooden cross and altar rail made plainer by the darkness inside, the stream of light from the streetlamps seeping through the stained-glass windows that dated back to centuries when electricity was yet to be a thought.
Instead of thinking, I just sat. I let the feeling of holy silence that this small space always brought fill me up and bring me the peace that Ben once had. And I realized that no person living or dead was ever going to make me feel whole. I really didn’t need a man to do that. But my friends had been wrong too. Because having that great love that I could navigate this life path with was too important to ignore.
I must have fallen asleep sitting up in that pew because the next thing I remember was Rob’s voice. “I’m glad I hired you so that I have another person to come with me to morning prayer.”
I tried to play it off like I hadn’t been there for hours, fallen asleep or been startled awake as he handed me a book open to the lessons for the day that I was to read.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked me for probably the millionth time in those three months. How he got through my being so secretive and him being so sure I was having a bad time, I’ll never know.
I nodded and forced a smile. “Sure. Fine. Ready to read.”
I knew I had to tell him I was leaving. But surely it could wait a few more minutes.
I don’t remember one word of that service, but I’ll never forget the beauty of that moment. Our two soft voices, rising and falling together in the stark quiet of the early morning, like a duet sung a cappella. I looked over at Rob and studied the kind lines of his face while he read, the strength of character and purity of heart that drew people to him so instantly. And, instead of reading the Apostles’ Creed from the Book of Common Prayer, I looked at him across the pew, where he was staring up at the single brass cross and began to recite from memory, “I believe in one God . . .”
There shouldn’t be one thing seductive about the Apostles’ Creed. But, somehow, with us all alone in that beautiful chapel, nothing but the raw sound of our voices intermingling, it was like a choir of angels, like our souls and our spirits combining together. I got lost in the sound, even on that first line, and, confusing the words of the Apostles’ Creed with those of the Nicene, I heard myself saying, “Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”
I heard the pause in Rob’s speech, the air lingering where our voices had combined, his eyes meeting mine from the edge of his pew across the aisle. I realized that “of all that is, seen and unseen” wasn’t a part of the Apostles’ Creed. But it was a part of my creed lately, wasn’t it? My husband had given a part of himself to someone else, and He had seen it, hadn’t He? My grandmother wasn’t at all who I thought she was, but He had seen it. I had lost the baby that I had wanted so much. But He had seen it. It said so, right there in those lines. Seen and unseen.
And the reality of it all floated down and sank in on me, its weight pushing me into the hard wooden pew, the tears I had dammed up for the months and months I had carried these burdens finally escaping.
Father Rob walked the three steps between my pew and his and said, with a half smile, “It’s okay. We all get the Apostles’ and the Nicene confused every now and then.”
I couldn’t help but return a flicker of his smile too. And it made me wish that I had confided in him earlier. He always knew what to say. He had such an easy way about him, a comfort level with people’s rawest emotions that I’ve never seen before or since.
“I know you’re going through a lot with your family right now . . . ,” he started.
But as if he already knew that wasn’t what was upsetting me, he stopped. Instead, he sat down beside me and wrapped his strong arms around me, my head involuntarily gravitating toward his chest.
I sniffed, took a deep breath, pulled myself together and said, “I had a miscarriage.”
“Oh, Annabelle, no.”
I put my hand up to stop him. “It gets worse. Ben and I are separated because he was screwing Laura Anne.” I shrugged. “Probably still is.”
A reaction that looked more like relief than shock crossed his countenance, like a patient getting bad news but happy for a diagnosis all the same. Then I leaned on his chest again, more to feel its masculine strength and smell his sweet, clean smell again than anything else. “And I just said ‘screwing’ in church.”
Father Rob pushed my head back off his chest, brushed my hair back behind my ears and studied my face. I thought he was going to say something, but, instead, he pulled me into him with just enough force that I knew he was in charge. And he leaned his head into mine. I gasped and pushed him away. “You can’t kiss me! We’re in church.”
He smiled and before I could argue again, I realized that my mouth was on his—and I might have been the one to put it there.
“Rob,” I said, pushing him back and gasping. I had never been so shocked.
“I’m sorry—” he started.
I laughed. “Are you completely insane? I’m married.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Well . . . married-ish.”
I scrunched my nose. “I have been separated for three months. That’s pretty long, right?”
I had tasted a bite of something so delicious I didn’t care that it was wrong. Like an oversized brownie, I knew I shouldn’t have any more, but, all of a sudden, I couldn’t care about the calories. So I kissed him again, longer, harder and with more intention this time. Then I leaned back in the pew, fanning myself with my hands, and wiped the sweat off of his blond brow. I looked around, remembering where I was, and said, “This is massively inappropriate.” I sighed and said, “I left Ben three months ago, and I haven’t told a soul.”
He kissed one cheek, then the other, and said, “I have been holding my breath since I met you, just hoping that something like this would happen. I can’t explain it, but, from the first time I met you, I just felt like I had known y
ou forever, like you were this part that my life was missing and, suddenly, when you appeared, everything was just better.” He looked over his shoulder and said, “I have been counting the minutes until you found out about Ben and Laura Anne so I could tell you how crazy I am about you.”
My body clenched and felt frozen to the pew. He leaned toward me, and I put my arm out to keep him from coming any closer. “Wait. You knew about this?”
He paused, and you could see in his face that he realized he had just made the biggest mistake of his life. He scratched his head. “Well, I guess technically I knew.”
I could feel the tears of humiliation in my eyes when I whispered, “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I couldn’t just come out and tell you, Annabelle. I’m a priest. People tell me their secrets because I’m not allowed to spread them. It’s part of the gig.”
I stood up, and, though he tried to grab my arm, I scooted past him out of the pew. Before I got to the door, I turned and said, “I can’t believe that the person I thought was my best friend would let me walk around all this time looking like a complete idiot, knowing something this huge and not telling me.”
“But, Annabelle—”
“You should have figured out a way.” I shook my head. “I’m surrounded by people telling me they love me, yet I’m drowning in lies.”
“But I tried—”
He never got to finish the sentence. Because, with that, I was stomping out of the church, realizing that slamming the several-hundred-pound door to the chapel was more than a little out of the question.
Lovey
All of Our Prayers
My momma always said that it isn’t accurate to say that the death of your partner, who has been by your side for more than three-quarters of your life, is devastating. And, yet, it isn’t tragic either, as no one could argue that eighty-nine isn’t a life well lived. It is, most of all, a death of the self. I knew how he liked his toast and what his favorite TV shows were better than I knew my own. His social security number came to mind even before mine when filling out tax statements. And then, with no warning whatsoever, where there had been two social security numbers on those federal returns, there was one.
Lies and Other Acts of Love Page 25